Mother’s Day in the UK - Three weeks before Easter Sunday 2021, 2022 and onwards

Mother’s day, also known as Mothering Sunday, is a holiday that is celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent, which is exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday. People in the UK have family reunions on this day to honour their mothers and celebrate motherhood. See also Father’s Day

Mother’s Day in the UK is not a fixed day because it is always the middle Sunday in Lent. Lent is the period that starts on Ash Wednesday (the Wednesday after Carnival) and lasts to the day before Easter Sunday. This means that Mothering Sunday is observed on different dates each year and sometimes even occurs in different months (normally in March or April).

The origin of Mothering Sunday

The exact origin of Mothering Sunday is unknown. Some historians relate the tradition to a Roman Spring Festival that was celebrated annually to honour Cybele, the Mother goddess (or Magna Mater) of the Romans. The traditions of this festival have some similarities with carnival and Easter as the themes of the celebrations were about death/mourning (trista) and joy/resurrection (hilaria). The spring festival was celebrated till the end of the Roman era.

As Christianity spread across Europe, new traditions were introduced in Britain. It is known that in the 17th century people visited their “Mother church” on this date. The Mother church was the nearest big church in the area or the Mother church was the church where one was baptised.

Traditionally, Mothering Sunday was the occasion when English children who had gone to work as apprentices and domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mothers and families. Often they were allowed by the cook or housekeeper to make a cake or take flowers from the mansion’s garden for their mothers.

Mother’s Day

Nowadays Mothering Sunday in Britain has taken on the name and character of Mother's Day as it is celebrated in most other countries in the world (second Sunday in May). The original meaning of Mothering Sunday is often unknown, although people are aware that it always falls in the middle of the Christian festival of Lent. Besides the date, the traditional gifts of cake, flowers and hand made cards are part of Mother’s Day traditions in Great Britain.